How Did I Become an F1 Driver?-Chapter 815 - 328: Kids Don’t Know Better—Just Playing Around
"Copy that, how's Hamilton doing over there?"
In this race, Qin Miao never intended to overtake Hamilton; he mainly asked to confirm his teammate's exact position.
He wanted to have a clear sense of how far he was from the ultimate drivers' championship position.
"Hamilton is still leading in P1. It seems Verstappen is having a hard time causing him any trouble in this race." Frankie's tone was very relaxed, with no sense of tension.
This was the confidence and composure that Qin Miao's terrifying consistency and speed throughout the season had brought him.
The gist of his words was that although Verstappen is fast in this race, he's not fast enough compared to Hamilton. So Hamilton remains Qin Miao's main competitor in this race.
"Got it."
After knowing Hamilton was fast, Qin Miao wasn't in a rush. The race was still far from over; he had plenty of time to slowly and steadily catch up to the two ahead.
In the next few laps, Qin Miao's soft tires also started to show signs of wear, which was inevitable since he didn't conserve tires at the beginning of the race and had been pushing hard.
Luckily, with Qin Miao's terrifying skills, the tire wear was still under control, and he was still faster than all the drivers using medium tires.
On the track, Verstappen, as Frankie said, despite switching to soft tires, found little room to unleash potential on the Yas Marina circuit, which is mainly composed of high-speed straights.
By lap 10, Qin Miao was 1.5 seconds behind Leclerc, starting to be affected by the slipstream from Leclerc's car.
Meanwhile, Verstappen was still 3.1 seconds behind Hamilton, and the gap was gradually widening.
It's hard to believe that this was the speed Verstappen clocked on soft tires. In contrast, Qin Miao, who also started the race on soft tires, was much faster.
By lap 13, Qin Miao had entered Leclerc's DRS zone.
Seeing the Mercedes car with a red helmet appearing in his rearview mirror, Leclerc actually wanted to let Qin Miao pass directly.
This would give Qin Miao more time to chase Hamilton and Verstappen ahead. Leclerc hoped that, if possible, Qin Miao could win the driver's championship this year and also step onto the podium for the last race of the season.
Leclerc felt that only in this way would the drivers' championship be complete.
However, Leclerc knew he needed to consider the impact of public opinion, so he didn't put his thoughts into practice. But when Qin Miao started a tentative attack on Leclerc, Leclerc showed no defensive moves at all, just normal corner entries and exits.
Noticing Leclerc essentially had no intention to defend against him, Qin Miao easily overtook Leclerc on the inside line in the next DRS zone, moving up to sixth.
On lap 14, just after Qin Miao overtook Leclerc and was preparing to chase Norris, who was 2 seconds ahead, he suddenly noticed...
Huh? Why did a Red Bull suddenly rush out from the pit lane in front of me?
Red Bull really sent Perez to defend against me so early?
After following for the first sector, Qin Miao realized that the driving style was different from Perez's. It was actually Verstappen...
Verstappen chose to pit early for a tire change on lap 14. Unable to catch up to Hamilton, Verstappen's side was attempting an undercut strategy against Hamilton.
In the first DRS zone on lap 14, as Qin Miao was wondering why Verstappen pitted so early, Verstappen used DRS at the end of the straight to overtake Norris in front of him.
Qin Miao also benefited from Verstappen overtaking Norris; in the second DRS zone, he smoothly overtook Norris, moving up to fifth.
